Barclays Volunteers Pass On Their Skills

During October, Barclays hosted a number of workshops with ReachOut as part of ‘Make a Difference Month’, an internal global campaign encouraging Barclays staff from all over the world to volunteer their time and skills to help bring about positive change.

On one of those workshops, twenty students from Bishop Challoner school jumped on the DLR to Canary Wharf for a workshop on public speaking. After a quick game of Pictionary to break the ice, the young people were given the challenge to write a short speech on ‘The two people I would most like to meet and why’. Breaking off into small groups, the students wrote and delivered their speeches all receiving individual tips and feedback from the Barclays staff. Speech topics ranged from Simon Cowell to Nelson Mandela, but what they all had in common was how well they were delivered and the great amount of effort the young people put in. The workshop ended in over half of the young people delivering their speeches to a room of over 30 people – a great achievement!

Later in the month, 25 students from Heartlands High School took part in a challenge to plan and budget their own summer festival with the winning team securing a £25,000 loan from Barclays. The group were broken off into 4 teams: ‘The Best’; ‘The Wizards of Oz’; ‘3 steps Ahead’ and ‘Money Makers’. After meticulously planning the festivals and double checking their budget sheets, the teams presented their pitches to a panel of judges including Cathy Abell from the Barclays Citizenship and Reputation team. All of the pitches were brilliant and many of the students discovered hidden talents in marketing and finance.

Cathy Abell commented, “Our volunteers have really enjoyed getting involved in these sessions and seeing first-hand the great work that ReachOut does. We’re looking forward to supporting more of these sessions going forward”.

We would like to say a huge thank you to the 30 + volunteers from Barclays who gave up their time during the month to support the ReachOut students – we hope they enjoyed the experience as much as our young people did! We would also like to thank the students from the following schools who were involved in the four workshops hosted over the month: Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School; Haggerston School, Heartlands High School and The Petchey Academy.